January 26, 2012

Munted

From the rubble of the February Christchurch earthquake rises this documentary style offering from Bare Hunt Collective. Pieced together from interviews with people affected by the quake, this show presents us with a new look on the stories of the survivors.

Admittedly, this is something we’ve seen a lot of from the media in the past year, the supposed “intimate one-on-one.” Munted however really does go a level deeper. From a three lady ensemble we are given a bevy of characters like; four year old Alex, a store owning family, a long distance couple and even the media. The cast do an excellent job of differentiating between characters, giving each of their characters their own voice, posture and distinct personalities.

Simple lighting draws our attention from actor to actor to the character/s currently in focus. The set is a jumble of chairs and tea cups set up to show each separate ‘setting’ for the various characters. They make use of sharing the set with Lonely Heart (on immediately afterward) by disguising the scaffolding with windows.Munted walks us through the shock, grief and even humour faced in the aftermath of the February quake and I found the emotions very real and accessible. It reminds us all how lucky we are to live in such a small close knit country where “people from Auckland were giving money to people in Christchurch who they’d never even met!”

Funny, entertaining and informative, Munted is an inventive, refreshing view on a sensitive subject which I’d especially recommend to anyone who was not there to experience it first hand.